"There’s no half measures"

An essential companion on any visit to Haworth, no less. The Lancashire Evening Post reviews Michael Stewart's Walking the Invisible:

As much a literary guide as a walk through the lives of the Brontës, and a fascinating exploration of the changes that were wrought on this part of West Yorkshire during the Victorian period. (...)

Vivid and evocative, and including a series of beautiful maps of walks, including Dentdale, Law Hill and North Lees Hall in Hathersage, which Stewart devised when creating the iconic Brontë Stones project, Walking the Invisible invites you to experience the Brontës as they have never before been experienced. (...)

As much a literary guide as a walk through the lives of the Brontës, and a fascinating exploration of the changes that were wrought on this part of West Yorkshire during the Victorian period, Walking the Invisible is an essential companion on any visit to the beautiful countryside around Haworth. (Pam Norfolk)

Far Out Magazine shares an isolated vocals version of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights:

Bush’s vocal dexterity has often been heralded as one of her defining facets. With a remarkable range, she was able to perform tongue and chord gymnastics that would make the Olympics blush. There are countless moments throughout her impressive canon where Bush has shown off just how flexible her instrument is, but perhaps no performance made a greater impact than ‘Wuthering Heights’. Below, we examine her isolated vocal track for the song and marvel at her talent.

Inspired largely by the BBC adaptation of Wuthering Heights instead of the Emily Bronte novel, the track that launched Kate Bush was written in the leafy South London suburb in the summer of 1977. As London was swollen with the vicious angst of punk, Kate Bush was creating a masterful pop record: “There was a full moon, the curtains were open, and it came quite easily,” Bush told her fan club in 1979.

Despite the TV adaptation providing the nugget of inspiration, the singer did lift lines straight from Brontë’s work as she uses Earnshaw’s plea “let me in! I’m so cold” among other quotations from the novel. It’s clear that Bush truly connected with the song, and in fact, the novel too. She told Record Mirror in 1978: “Great subject matter for a song. I loved writing it. It was a real challenge to precis the whole mood of a book into such a short piece of prose.”

Bush continued, “Also when I was a child I was always called Cathy not Kate and I just found myself able to relate to her as a character. It’s so important to put yourself in the role of the person in a song. There’s no half measures. When I sing that song I am Cathy. (Her face collapses back into smiles.) Gosh, I sound so intense. ‘Wuthering Heights’ is so important to me. It had to be the single. To me, it was the only one.” (Jack Whatley)

The Spectator reviews Brontë’s Britain with Gyles Brandreth and points out precisely one of the main problems of the documentary:

So it was that Gyles pretended that a ruin on Yorkshire Moors called Top Withins was once the ‘real’ Wuthering Heights. (Luckily, we weren’t shown the Brontë Society plaque there which unequivocally declares that ‘The buildings bore no resemblance to the house’ that Emily described.) Then again, so apparently was the nearby Ponden Hall — usually regarded by fiction-sceptics as the ‘real’ Thrushcross Grange from the novel, but here conscripted to be the ‘real’ Wuthering Heights too, complete with the very window at which ‘Cathy made her most unforgettable appearance’ (not bad going for the ghost of someone who was never alive in the first place). A little while after that, Gyles was shown the ‘real’ Thornfield Hall from Jane Eyre — and required to gaze wonderingly at the precise spot at which ‘Jane came to Norton Conyers’.

Granted, this desire for everything in our favourite books to be true could be seen as touching evidence of the power they have over us. Nonetheless, it was hard not to feel that Gyles was rather missing the point of fiction when he concluded triumphantly that, far from being mere ‘flights of fancy’, the Brontës’ novels are reassuringly autobiographical after all. (James Walton)

Vulture asks for the favourite books of film director François Ozon:

I dove into Wuthering Heights when I was 15 or 16 and read it in a single sitting, starting in the afternoon and reading late into the night. I was thrilled by the idea of passionate love. It’s a very English novel, very gothic, whereas French Romanticism is more rooted in disillusion. We had a big library in our home, and my parents let me read whatever I wanted. But I was mainly excited by the books, like this one, tucked away on the highest shelves.

Good Morning America lists some of the new publications of July, including:

'Praying with Jane Eyre: Reflections on Reading as a Sacred Practice' by Vanessa Zoltan
Memoir meets literature classic in this relatable memoir about finding oneself through scripture, even if that scripture is "Jane Eyre." Chaplain Vanessa Zoltan, who was raised Jewish with four Holocaust survivors as grandparents (they met in Auschwitz, she meets guys on dating apps, she jokes) explores how to give a sermon through the words of Charlotte Bronte, J.K. Rowling, F. Scott Fitzgerald and other literary legends, not necessarily through the Bible. An homage to the power of books to transform lives, this story will captivate you -- and make you want to sit and listen to Vanessa's "sermons" forever. (Zibby Owens)

New Statesman reviews the new novel by Minae Mizumura, An I-Novel:

Compared to the structural intricacy and emotional intensity of Mizumura’s masterpiece, A True Novel (2002, translated in 2013) – a retelling of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights set in postwar Japan which unfolds across several generations of several families – An I-Novel seems slight and almost deliberately scaled back, as if an exercise in reducing fiction to its rudiments. (Lola Seaton)

Book Riot goes for some new reimaginations of classic stories:

YA author Rachel Hawkins makes her adult fiction debut with this modern retelling of Jane Eyre. In The Wife Upstairs, Jane is new to the town of Birmingham, Alabama, and takes a job as a dog walker for the city’s elite in order to stay afloat. She soon crosses paths with a wealthy mysterious widower Eddie Rochester. As the two fall for each other, Jane becomes increasingly haunted by the legend of Eddie’s ambitious late wife. Packed with suspense, this gripping novel puts a smart and thrilling twist on the gothic classic. (Michelle Regalado)

The Newton Bee interviews a local teacher: 

What is your favorite book? 

Amy McGinniss: As an English co-teacher you can imagine that I have many favorite pieces of literature. If I had to choose only one favorite, it would have to be Jane Eyre. It is a very untraditional love story that has been made into countless movie versions. It is a classic!

El País (Spain) interviews the writer David Foenkinos:

Anatxu ZabalbeascoaEn sus novelas se da esa segunda oportunidad. ¿Qué leyó?
Lolita, Jane Eyre… La lectura me acompañaba y me consolaba.

Publish News (Brazil) presents a local edition of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own:

Quatro grandes romancistas inglesas citadas por seus êxitos nesse texto – Jane Austen, as irmãs Charlotte e Emily Brontë, além de George Eliot (pseudônimo de Mary Ann Evans) – foram tema de outros ensaios específicos, originalmente publicados em O leitor comum, e também reunidos nessa edição de Um quarto só seu (Bazar do Tempo, 240 pp, R$ 59,90 – Trad.: Julia Romeu). Depois de quase um século, a obra de Virginia Woolf continua alimentando os debates feministas e de gênero com inabalável vigor. (Translation) 

The obituary of a local resident mentions his love for Charlotte Brontë in The Provincetown Independent. La Vanguardia (Spain) or La Repubblica (Italy) publishes articles on the Honresfeld collection and particularly its many Brontë treasures.